“There is a saying: If you’re a “B” player, you’ll hire “C” players to work for you because you don’t want them to look smarter than you. If you’re an “A” player, you’ll hire “A+” players because you want the best result.”

• What kind of players do you work with?
• What kind of players do you work for?
• What kind of player are you?

Read more: The Top 10 Lessons Steve Jobs Can Teach Us — If We’ll Listen (Forbes)

A friend of mine recently recounted a meeting he had with his management team. The team was considering how to communicate to company executives eye-opening findings from a project my friend and his team had undertaken. They set out to gauge employees’ reaction to a set of questions about the business, and learned that employees and leaders weren’t in sync on delivering a critical element of the company’s strategy.

One of the managers in the meeting said, “The problem we’re going to have to overcome is, no one asked us to do this.”

“I don’t think I heard another word the rest of the meeting,” my friend said. “I just kept hearing, ‘The problem is … no one asked us to do this …‘ I was struck dumb. Would our higher-ups really be more comfortable marching ahead without all of the information they needed to be successful? Or was it a matter of us being fearful about delivering potentially bad news (even if it would necessarily involve helping to develop a plan to keep the strategy on track)?”

Sad to say, the learnings from my friend’s project are gathering dust on a shelf.

Look around your work place and ask yourself: Is the fact that no one asks you to do something that could generate real value for the business (even if the effort gives rise to an unexpected result or a need to take a hard look in the mirror) a good thing … or a problem to be overcome?

If it’s the latter, you’re working for the wrong people.

I love these quotes, the first from the creator of IBM’s first corporate design program, the second from the company’s enlightened and beloved CEO from 1952-1971.

They speak to the importance of being smart and aligning everything you do to the business objectives you intend to achieve, and eliminating everything that doesn’t specifically and purposefully advance the objective.

Companies that understand this and do it well — IBM and Apple to name two — take their business to a new level and are truly worthy of others’ envy (check out this ad campaign from IBM, for example). Those that fail to achieve a level of corporate self-actualization risk foundering in brand chaos.

Which is your business?

Read “Good Design is Good Business” from IBM 100

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

– Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, to Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985

Are you one who would use the plywood because it wouldn’t be seen?

Or are you wired to put in the hours and effort required to ensure that everything you touch represents the best, smartest work you are capable of producing, and that every creation rises to your own exacting standards of exceptionalism — even though no one else will notice or care?

• What if you know the user of your product or service won’t notice or care?

• What if you know your boss/manager/customer/client (the person or group evaluating your work) won’t notice or care?

The real question is: Who do you work for?

I captured this street scene on San Francisco’s Haight Street on June 8, 2011. This gentleman approached daughter Anna and me and said, “Do you want to take my picture? Everyone wants to take my picture.” He grabbed a pose, the other guy jumped up and applied bunny ears, I snapped the shutter and we walked on. Later, I found this really cool picture in the camera.

We saw James Cotton and Charlie Musselwhite and their respective bands at the Minnesota Zoo June 16. Both are maybe a little past their prime (ahem), but both can still bring it.

These clips are from different shows in the same month (June 13 and 24, respectively), so they’re almost exactly what we saw.

Charlie Musselwhite and his band opened:

Mr. Superharp wrapped things up: